In the weeks approaching the Junior Valentine's Ball, we were in our room, playing Hunters on his PlayStation. I was armed with a shotgun, chasing his vampire avatar around a dark forest.

I found him hiding up a tree, and pulled the trigger. He didn't react.

I looked at him, and he was sitting with his legs pulled up to his chest, his chin resting on his arms.

"You okay?" I asked, pausing the game. He turned his head and faced me.

He didn't respond, as if he was thinking about it. He stretched and yawned, then leaned onto my shoulder. "I think I shouldn't go to the Ball. I don't feel like I'd enjoy it."

As far I understood, Liron already had a date. "What about what's-her-face?" He scoffed and shook his head, but remained silent.

I didn't know what to say, so I turned and faced him. He stared back at me, his blue eyes betraying no emotion. He seemed almost one dimensional, like the boy I knew was somehow gone and replaced by a paper-thin replica. 

There wasn't a light in his eyes, or a smile tugging at the edge of his lips. His hair seemed dull and his cheeks like chalk. I wondered how long he had looked like this. It frightened me. Seeing him seem so empty made me feel empty.

"You don't look so good, Li." I stood up, holding my hand out for him. He looked at it, then back at me. I shook waved my hand for emphasis, and he took it. I pulled him to his feet, and led him to the bed, where I made him sit down. "You should get some sleep, buddy. You look very tired."

Liron sighed and rolled his eyes, but turned over onto the bed, facing away from me.I watched him lying there, staring at the plain blue wall. His chest was rising and falling in a slow rhythm, and I felt worry scratching at my core.

I slid onto the bed with him, put my arm around him and buried my face into his back. "If you're not going to the Ball, I'm staying here with you."

"But, Jessica," he muttered. 

"She's not my best friend."

Liron scoffed again, but didn't say more. We fell asleep like that. 

Liron spent a lot of time sleeping over the next few weeks, and he always seemed like a shadow of his former self. Whenever I asked about it, he would just say he was tired. There were days I would get home from soccer, and he would be curled up beneath the blankets, breathing softly and dreaming about whatever went on in his head.

Then, on other days, he would just sit there, reading a book without really reading at all. I tried my best, at first, to engage with him, but he would still just give me empty smiles, or monotone answers. I felt like I lost my best friend. 

I went to the Valentine's Ball with Jessica. It wasn't fun. All the time I was worried about Liron, at home, dissociating. I was worried that he would be gone when I got back.

Our mothers were worried too. He was sent to a psychologist, and was prescribed antidepressants. I felt hurt and betrayed by the fact that I couldn't make him feel better, that we had to get him drugs, but at least, even though they didn't always work, they gave my Liron back to me.

He stopped taking them sometime during college, but the fear that the darkness would return always held a place in my soul. I couldn't fight the demons in his head. I wish I could. I really wish I could.